


Another Way

by avislightwing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:52:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8023390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: After trailing him for months, Harry finds Malfoy crying in the bathroom with Moaning Myrtle comforting him - and the encounter goes much differently than he expects.





	Another Way

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! This is my first fanfic that I've finished and posted, so I'd appreciate any reviews. :)

“He’ll kill me,” Malfoy sobbed. He was leaning over the counter, tears dripping off the end of his nose and into the sink. “I can’t do it – I can’t – and when I fail he’ll kill me –”

  
Harry edged a few inches further into the bathroom. He’d never seen Malfoy cry, never seen him without his mask of pride and scorn. Now, with his pale blond hair mussed and flopping into his face, with his cold grey eyes full of despair and tears, he seemed almost… human.

  
“Shh,” Moaning Myrtle soothed, her pearly form hovering over the crying boy. “Shh, it’ll be all right…”

  
“You don’t understand!” Malfoy said wildly. “It won’t be all right, it’ll never –” Suddenly, his eyes snapped to the mirror, catching sight of Harry. He froze. Harry did as well, his hand twitching towards his wand but then stilling.

  
“Myrtle – go,” Malfoy said.

  
“But –”

“Just go!” he snarled. Moaning Myrtle gave him a hurt look, then swooped through the wall.

“Well?” Malfoy said bitterly, still standing over the sink. “Come to gloat, Potter?”

Harry didn’t move, didn’t dare do anything that could startle the other boy into attacking. “I… don’t know.”

Malfoy whirled around, his teeth bared. “You don’t _know_? What the hell do you mean, you don’t know? You’ve been following me around all year. You almost missed last Quidditch match, and you’re the bloody team captain!” His voice rose with every syllable.

Harry hesitated. “Malfoy… What’s wrong?” he finally asked.

Malfoy glared at him. “Why the hell should you care? You’ve been trying to ruin my life for six years now.”

Harry’s temper flared. “I’ve been trying to ruin _your_ life?” he snapped. “You’ve attacked me every chance you’ve gotten! You were going to let Umbridge Cruciate me last year! You hate me!”

Malfoy seemed to deflate. “You don’t get it. You’ll never get it.”

“Try me,” Harry dared, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just try me, why don’t you?”

Malfoy glanced back at Harry, his pointed face even paler than usual, his grey eyes less like steel and more like an overcast sky – soft, clouded, and threatening rain at any moment. “How do I know you won’t just run off and tattle to your precious Dumbledore?” he asked, his voice pinched.

“You don’t,” Harry acknowledged. He leaned back against the wall, letting the comment sit between them.

Malfoy was silent for a moment. Then – “I’m in too deep,” he choked out. “I can’t do what he’s told me to do, and if I can’t, he’ll kill me.”

“Voldemort, you mean?”

Malfoy flinched at the name. “You don’t know what it’s like.” Another tear dripped off the end of his nose, and he wiped angrily at his eyes. “You don’t get it, Potter.” His voice dropped. “I – I just want out. I want out…” He rubbed at his left forearm.

Harry didn’t know what to say. He’d imagined this confrontation – imagined accusing Malfoy of all sorts of things, the spells they would use on each other – but never had he pictured this. The two of them, huddled in the torchlit bathroom. No spells, no curses. Malfoy wiping his nose with a monogrammed handkerchief – the handkerchief didn’t surprise Harry, but the tears did.

“How did you know?” Malfoy asked in a low voice, startling Harry from his reverie.

“How did I know what?”

Malfoy’s mouth twitched. “That I was up to something.”

“Er… I rather always think you’re up to something,” Harry admitted. “Though this time you were acting extra suspicious, what with the sneaking around and trip to Nocturne Alley and stuff.”

“Didn’t know you knew about that. Lucky guess, then?”

“Basically.” Harry sighed, letting himself slide down the wall to sit on the floor.

“Where’s the rest of the dream team, anyways?” Now a bit drier, Malfoy’s eyes gleamed with curiosity.

Harry groaned, tipping his head back, letting it thud against the wall. “Ron and Hermione think I’m totally wrong about you. Not to mention they’re still not talking.”

Harry eyed Malfoy. “Your turn to gloat, I guess.”

Malfoy shrugged. “You didn’t gloat over me. I suppose I should return the favor.” He carefully sat down on the floor. “It’s not like my friends are in any better shape.”

“Crabbe and Goyle, you mean?” Malfoy nodded. “Why do you even hang out with them?”

“Well, my father’s friends with their fathers –”

“They’re all Death Eaters, you mean,” Harry interrupted.

Malfoy glared at him, then turned away. “Yeah,” he admitted grudgingly. “And, like your pals, they… go along with what I do. You know?”

Harry found himself nodding. “But now…” But now, there they were. No Ron and Hermione. No Crabbe and Goyle. Just two boys in over their heads.

Two boys asked to do things even grown wizards shied away from.

Two boys carrying the weight of the world alone.

Or maybe not.

“What if you didn’t do it – the thing he told you to do?” Harry blurted out.

Malfoy’s eyes snapped to him, then away. “I told you! He’ll kill me!”

“You’re at Hogwarts,” Harry argued, more urgently. “There’s no place safer.”

“My mother…”

“Dumbledore will help, I know he will,” Harry said. “He’ll hide her. Your dad, too, probably.”

“Father always did say Dumbledore was too soft,” Malfoy said quietly. He seemed to be trying to keep his eyes off Harry – they darted around the room, resting on the sinks, the toilets, anything but Harry’s eyes, so green that Ginny had once compared them to a fresh pickled toad.

Harry found himself edging closer. “What if?” he asked again. He thought of young Tom Riddle, then of Malfoy. He was in Slytherin, like Riddle. Cunning, like Riddle. Top of his class, like Riddle.

Alone, like Harry. Scared, like Harry.

Who was Malfoy – Draco Malfoy? He wasn’t Voldemort. He wasn’t even really a Death Eater.

He was just another boy, one Harry had hated for too long.

“Draco.” Malfoy jumped at hearing his first name in Harry’s mouth. “Let me help you.”

“Potter…” Malfoy’s voice was weak, and Harry could see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “I can’t. Please…”

“Let me _help_ you.” Harry had never been this close to Malfoy, close enough to see that perhaps his eyes weren’t grey after all, but blue.

“Harry…” Harry couldn’t remember moving, much less moving close enough that he could feel Malfoy’s breath in the whispered word.

And he couldn’t tell, afterwards, which one of them moved, which one of them kissed the other first.

All he knew was that Draco’s lips were so much warmer than he’d imagined them to be – when had he even thought about that? – and that they tasted like tears and honeysuckle and magic.

Like the lifting of a burden.

Like something falling into place.

Like the filling up of an emptiness in Harry’s heart he hadn’t known existed, the healing of a wound that had hurt so long, had been such a consistent, unchanging ache, that it had become a part of Harry’s reality.

Draco gave a shaky sigh. “Why the hell did you _wait_ so long?” he murmured.

“I thought you hated me.” Harry rested his forehead against Draco’s.

“I thought so too. At first.” Draco absently tried to pat Harry’s hair into place, as if he’d done it many times before. “And by the time I realized I didn’t… Well.”

“It was too late…”

Draco shrugged. “At that point, it was easier to keep being an ass, I suppose. You had Weasley and Granger. I had Crabbe and Goyle. I thought I would get over it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Hell, how should I know?” Draco said testily. “I wished I would. Wished it every day. Every time we dueled, every time we played each other at Quidditch, every time we passed each other in the hallways…”

“That’s a lot of wishing.” Harry’s nose nudged against Draco’s.

“What about you?” Draco asked suddenly.

“What _about_ me?”

Draco made a gesture between them. “This. Why?”

“I don’t know.” Harry met Draco’s cool grey gaze. “No, really, I don’t. I didn’t really realize any of this before now.”

“God, Potter, you’re even thicker than I thought. How could you not know when you want to snog someone?”

“I’ve had a lot of other things on my mind,” Harry said defensively. “Besides, you broke my nose! Why would I want to snog someone who broke my nose? And that’s just most recently.”

Draco ran a finger down Harry’s nose. “You tell me.”

“Or maybe… maybe we don’t have to worry about the _why_ just now,” Harry said, slightly cross-eyed from trying to focus on Draco’s finger lightly tapping on the bridge of his glasses.

“First good idea you’ve ever had, I’ll wager,” Draco murmured, kissing him again.

Just two boys.

Two boys in love.

**Author's Note:**

> Edited for format 12/27/16


End file.
